Publication
Gender Equality and Stock Returns
| datacite.subject.fos | Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Oliveira, Célia Patrício Valente de | |
| dc.contributor.author | Victorio, Anna Luiza Matos Nunes | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-12-18T14:24:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-12-18T14:24:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-12-04 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation examines the relationship between gender equality in corporate governance and stock market performance in the European context. Motivated by the growing relevance of diversity in corporate boards and its recognition within Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks, the study explores whether gender equality is associated with superior stock returns. The analysis focuses on publicly listed companies in the STOXX Europe 600 index between 2014 and 2024, a period marked by important regulatory developments, including the European Union Directive on Gender Balance in Corporate Boards. The research adopts a quantitative, explanatory, and correlational design. Firm-level data on board gender composition were collected from LSEG Workspace (LSEG Data & Analytics), while financial data were obtained from Datastream. The empirical analysis employs panel data regressions to estimate the impact of gender equality on both raw returns and risk-adjusted returns, the latter calculated through Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Fama-French three- and five-factor models. Control variables such as firm size, leverage, book-to-market ratio, and beta were included, and robustness checks were conducted to validate the results. The findings indicate that gender equality on boards, measured by the percentage of women directors, does not exert a statistically significant effect on stock returns. Although the coefficients often show a positive direction, the results suggest that gender diversity is not yet perceived by investors as a direct driver of financial market performance in the short term. Instead, stock returns appear to be more strongly influenced by traditional firm-level and market factors. These results align with prior studies reporting neutral or inconclusive effects of gender diversity on financial outcomes, while reinforcing the broader value of gender equality for governance, legitimacy, and long-term sustainability. | eng |
| dc.identifier.tid | 204089204 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/15153 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | Gender equality | |
| dc.subject | Corporate governance | |
| dc.subject | Stock returns | |
| dc.subject | Panel regression | |
| dc.subject | Europe | |
| dc.title | Gender Equality and Stock Returns | |
| dc.type | master thesis | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication |